First intent to sue made in Sandy Hook shootings

Susan Tuz |
December 28, 2012
| Updated: December 28, 2012 10:41pm

NEWTOWN -- A New Haven attorney is seeking permission from the state to sue on behalf of a 6-year-old girl who he said was traumatized by what she heard over the loudspeakers at Sandy Hook Elementary School the morning of the mass shootings.

The request, the first apparent litigation effort filed in the shootings, comes just two weeks after the death of 20 children and six educators.

Attorney Irving Pinsky sent a notice of claim and request for permission to sue the state to Claims Commissioner J. Paul Vance Jr. on Thursday on behalf of "Jill Doe, a minor child of six years of age and resident of Newtown, Connecticut."

He is asking for $100 million on the child's behalf and brings the claim through the child's parents, cited as "John and Jane Doe."

"I'm not releasing her name or her parents' names," Pinsky said Friday. "She's a little girl and she's suffered enough."

Pinsky said he was contacted by the girl's parents within days of the shootings and agreed to take the case because "we must stand together to protect our children. If we don't, nothing will change."

He hopes suits such as this would bring legislators to act to change gun control laws.

Pinsky cites in the claim that the child "was a student on the premises" of Sandy Hook Elementary School and heard "conversations, gunfire, and screaming" transmitted through the school's intercom system on the day Adam Lanza attacked.

As a result, the child has "sustained emotional and psychological trauma and injury, the nature of the extent has yet to be determined," the basis of claim reads.

Also the state "failed to determine whether the Newtown Board of Education had in fact provided a safe school setting," the intent claims.

The state's claims commissioner has the power to determine whether many types of claims of damages or injuries lodged against the state government are just.

The commissioner, after reviewing evidence, and if necessary, scheduling hearings, can approve immediate payment of claims worth $7,500 and under; recommend the General Assembly pay or reject claims over $7,500; and allow lawsuits against Connecticut to proceed.

His decision can be appealed by only the Legislature.

Earlier this year, he rejected Charla Nash's request to sue the state for damages related to her severe mauling by a chimpanzee in 2009.